Proceedings Paper
• new

We compare the theoretical properties of microgrid polarization cameras and show that the 0-45-90-135 and the 0-60-120 configurations for the micropolarizer orientations have the same noise performance. However, from the standpoint of spatial sampling efficiency, we show that the 0-45-90-135 is clearly more efficient. From the calibrated micropolarizer diattenuation and orientation properties of a commercially available microgrid polarization camera, we also derive formulas for the as-built performance of this camera. By correcting for the imperfect diattenuation, we show that one can achieve high-performance polarimetry using these low-performance micropolarizers through the use of a high-precision calibration. The tradeoff in doing so is a surprisingly small 25% increase in the noise.